September 4, 2019

Trump Holds Up a Doctored Chart to Try to Show Hurricane Dorian Hitting Alabama

The altered map appears to justify the president’s false claim that the state would be affected by the hurricane.

Evan Vucci/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Who needs memory holes when you can alter the truth with a stroke of black Sharpie?

A White House video released Wednesday shows President Donald Trump holding up a chart of the trajectory of Hurricane Dorian. But there’s one problem: Added onto the National Hurricane Center’s “cone of uncertainty” forecast, outlined in white on the map, someone seems to have drawn in black marker an additional bulge covering Alabama.

 

Evan Vucci/AP

 

Alabama was not in fact in the projected path of Hurricane Dorian.

The Sharpie art is likely a cover for the mistake Trump made Sunday when he falsely tweeted that the category 5 storm would hit Alabama, prompting the National Weather Service in Birmingham to tweet 20 minutes later that the state would not be affected.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration briefed Trump last week, on Aug. 29, with a map showing the hurricane’s trajectory extending into Florida. The White House video Wednesday uses the same map, but now with the alteration.

 

A photo posted to the White House’s Flickr account on Aug. 29 shows Trump receiving a briefing with an unaltered map.

The White House/Flickr

The Washington Post reports Wednesday that, “When asked whether the chart had been drawn on, Trump said: ‘I don’t know; I don’t know.'” The Post also notes the creating a false weather report is illegal and warrants a fine, up to 90 days of imprisonment, or both.

See the doctored poster in the video below:

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate